Who's Behind That Curtain? Unveiling Potential Leverage Over Pyongyang

Michael Horowitz Who’s Behind That Curtain? Unveiling Potential Leverage over Pyongyang After more than a decade and a half of crises, negotiations, and agreements, North Korea is now believed to have produced enough nuclear material for several nuclear weapons. What now? As long as the North Ko- rean regime believes that the status quo is sustainable, they will have little incentive to dismantle their nuclear program completely. Regardless of one’s preferred endgame for the Korean peninsula, establishing effective levers of influence over North Korea is a vital first step in moving toward sustainable resolution of the nuclear issue. It is currently unclear whether Pyongyang would agree to verifiable nuclear dismantlement in exchange for serious economic and political incentives from the United States. If such an agreement can be reached, it will pave the way for a nuclear-free peninsula. If it fails, the United States will have overwhelm- ing international support to move toward a more coercive solution. Currently, Pyongyang simply responds to U.S. diplomatic overtures with threats and brinksmanship, a cycle that intensifies crises and the possibility of armed con- flict on the peninsula. In return, the United States and other regional actors seem to have little ability to threaten or otherwise influence Pyongyang. Re- sponding to the current situation by granting unreciprocated concessions to the North Koreans would likely exacerbate the problem; allowing North Ko- rea to reap the economic benefits of broken promises will not lead to a sustainable solution. Building an enduring solution requires understanding how to influence the North Korean regime. Although North Korea’s power structure is noto- Michael Horowitz is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Government at Harvard University and a predoctoral fellow in national security at the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies. The author would like to thank Nicholas Eberstadt, Iain Johnston, and Jon Paul Lupo for their advice and assistance. © 2004 by The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Washington Quarterly • 28:1 pp. 21–44. THE WASHINGTON QUARTERLY ■ WINTER 2004-05 21 l Michael Horowitz riously opaque, a clear group of elites, led by Kim Jong Il, hold the over- whelming balance of power. Three interrelated but somewhat conceptually distinct areas, or levers, of influence over the Pyongyang elites may exist: cultural-political, military, and economic. The U.S. military has traditionally served as the fulcrum of U.S. influence with North Korea, while cultural levers of influence held by South Korea and China seem to exist but are noto- riously difficult to quantify and predict. Economic levers may offer a new mechanism for increasing the relative influence of the United States and its allies over Pyongyang. Although existing knowledge is limited by inherent uncertainties about the North Korean regime, including the nature of elite relationships and the bases of economic and political stability, data gathered from South Korean, U.S., and international sources have begun to paint a matrix of a North Korean economic system potentially vulnerable from mul- tiple directions and sources. Any effective, long-term resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue, whether through multilateral, bilateral, or no talks at all, will be successful only if all interested and influential states cooperate with one another. Al- though the road to Pyongyang traditionally has been through Beijing, careful examination of the potential cultural-political, military, and economic sources of influence available demonstrates that U.S. coordination with Japan and es- pecially South Korea, particularly to crack down on Pyongyang’s sources of hard currency, is also important. Combining each of these state’s independent sources of influence on Pyongyang will maximize the potential to convince Kim Jong Il to abandon North Korea’s nuclear program permanently. Reading Tea Leaves: Potential Cultural-Political and Military Influence CULTURAL-POLITICAL Deriving sources of cultural or political influence is inherently abstract; mea- suring it is very difficult. At first glance, the ability of any country culturally to influence Pyongyang seems weak. North Korea’s juche philosophy of extreme self-reliance emphasizes the uniqueness of the North Korean experience, lim- iting its similarities with others. North Korea does, however, share a cultural heritage with South Korea and China. This type of influence seems to func- tion either by providing policy role models, such as the Chinese economic model for reforming the North Korean economy, or by increasing trust in the minds of one country’s elites about the calculations and advice of the leaders of another country with similar historical and ethnic experiences. 22 THE WASHINGTON QUARTERLY ■ WINTER 2004-05 Who’s Behind That Curtain? Unveiling Potential Leverage over Pyongyang l The United States obviously shares few cultural similarities with North Korea and therefore has little cultural or political influence. Other countries, however, may be able to exert some influence. In the past, the North Korean regime had two staunch allies: the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). With the collapse of the Soviet Union, an important link between North Korea and the outside world disappeared, and although North Korean–Russian ties have slightly improved in recent years, relations do not approach Soviet-era levels. This great change has left China as North Korea’s only remaining ally. China’s relation- China’s cultural- ship with North Korea has been prototypi- political influence on cally described as being as close as “lips and teeth.” Unfortunately, China’s cultural influ- North Korea has ence on North Korea, although rooted in his- likely declined in tory and geography, has likely declined in recent years. recent years as Pyongyang’s paranoia about its own stability has increased. Generational turnover among military elites has elimi- nated personal ties built from a sense of shared experiences in the Korean War, while internal instability in North Korea has made Kim Jong Il wary of admitting any foreign influences that might accentuate disruptive trends. Chinese market reforms may serve as a positive model for economic growth, but they also have created perceptual and substantive differences between the experiences of elites in each country. Chinese elites, who now speak the language of market economics and worry about banking reform or foreign investment, have less in common with their still-isolated North Korean in- terlocutors than counterparts in previous generations. Such differences may limit China’s cultural-political influence over North Korea. On the bright side, some evidence indicates that North Korea is reconsid- ering its general rejection of Chinese-style economic reforms, although the steps are halting and the reasons not entirely clear. According to Shim Jae Won, a senior executive vice president at Hyundai involved in economic negotiations with North Korea, Kim Jong Il’s visit to Chinese economic zones in Shanghai and Shenzen may have changed North Korea’s perspective.1 This statement suggests that the situation in North Korea has deterio- rated to the point that the leadership is now willing to consider new mea- sures and illustrates the country’s potential susceptibility to new leverage strategies. Although the North Korean regime seems acutely aware of its relative international isolation, Pyongyang nevertheless remains very para- noid about establishing the types of links that could generate an influx of subversive influences. Creating special economic zones might allow foreign- THE WASHINGTON QUARTERLY ■ WINTER 2004-05 23 l Michael Horowitz ers unprecedented access to North Korea, leading to increased desire among the population for more freedoms and to a new conduit for refugee flows. Therefore, although it still has unique access to the North Korean leadership, allowing it at least to convey clear messages, Beijing may not have the same level of cultural leverage over North Korea that has been commonly assumed. Conversely, South Korea’s cultural-political influence on the North Ko- rean population may very well be larger than is presumed. Anecdotal evidence reflected in the editorial pages of leading South Korean newspapers, survey data recently published by CSIS,2 and the results of general elections in South Korea on April 15, 2004, that tripled the seats of the center-left Uri party collectively show that, concurrent with rising anti-Americanism, the South Korean public increasingly believes in the idea of a shared destiny with North Korea and seeks some sort of major reconciliation. The majority of South Koreans still oppose reunification (with the example of East Ger- many serving as an important reminder of the potentially massive economic costs), but the margin is narrowing. Although it is impossible to say with certainty, given the North Korean regime’s airtight control over the “education” of its population, a similar belief may exist within North Korea. State propaganda from Radio Pyongyang does seem to promote the idea that North and South Koreans are brothers and belong as one country. Several questions, however, remain unanswered: To what extent might a belief in a shared cultural destiny with South Korea animate North Korea’s strategy? If such a shared belief does in fact influence North Korean behavior, what are the implications for designing the strategic levers most likely to effectively influence the North Korean leadership? Of- ficial high-level contacts between governmental officials from North and South Korea are still the exception rather than the rule, but increasing economic and lower-level political contacts could help bolster overall ties between the two countries, providing South Korea with unique cultural leverage in the medium term. Nevertheless, recent disputes about increasing refugee flows from North to South Korea and uncertainty about the next summit demonstrate that this process will be slow. MILITARY Unlike cultural influence, military influence is more tangible.

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